4th of July Festivities

This year the 4th of July seemed to drag on and on. It's because the 4th was on a Sunday, so the Freedom Festival split everything up that we normally do in 1 day - to 3 days. Saturday night we went and watched the fireworks. All the kids enjoyed them - even Alexandra! At first she wasn't so sure and she had her ears covered, but then I looked over a couple minutes later and her hands were off her ears and she was just staring at the fireworks, mesmerized!

On Sunday we did the traditional "sleep out for the parade" evening. Normally I go home to sleep because I really dislike this tradition, but this time I decided to stay the night. I just don't like to be dead tired, sticky, and unshowered the next day. Anyway . . . I took this video of the family living it up on the parade route. :)



As you can see, the parade route is just one big, loud party the night before. This year wasn't as bad as the other years because it was on Sunday night. Usually all the college kids are throwing parties with loud music all night, but there was none of that this year. I think Jeremy and I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep.

Poor little Nathan isn't really one for a lot of noise. He became quite overwhelmed and we looked over to see him just sitting in this little chair off by himself. Jeremy talked to him for awhile and then they sat together and watched for motorcycles in Nathan's favorite colors. That seemed to cheer him up.


Another fun thing to do while we sit out is to watch people get busted by the cops. The cops are everywhere and they constantly pull people over for all kinds of reasons. In fact, when Jeremy's parents were heading home for the night, they stopped by the curb to say goodbye and to leave us some water bottles. Sure enough, within less than 2 minutes a cop was behind them with his lights on telling them to keep moving. We were laughing about the fact that Grandma and Grandpa got busted. After they left I went to tuck Alexandra in her sleeping bag. She looked up at me very seriously and said, "Bama Boppa got busted, why?" LOL! Way to leave a mark!!

I think this is the coldest 4th of July I can remember. Does anything in this picture look odd to you? In case you had a different answer, the correct answer would be that we are ALL WRAPPED IN BLANKETS and we are WEARING JACKETS!!!! It was odd that we were all so cold!

Despite being tired and cold, we all still managed to have a good time.

After the parade we went to the mall. Then drove home to get swimming suits. Came back for a picnic in the park. Went swimming. Watched fireworks at Grandma's house. Got home late.

I love that I got to spend the day with my family. I'm so grateful to live in this land of freedom. It really scares me to see a lot of our freedoms disappearing, but I believe we still live in the greatest nation on this earth. It brought me to tears to see the veterans go by in the parade and I'm forever grateful to them for their sacrifice. Happy 4th of July!!